Doctors In Financial Trouble: Many Selling Their Practices & Switching Careers

the era of many best and brightest among us going into medicine is over. Independent minded people will find medicine increasingly distasteful. In there place will be medical bureaucrats skilled at taking orders and cutting costs. You will see less and less white and asian males and more and more women and lower IQ minorities. The era of the independent doctor with high ability and esteem is ending quickly.

 

I hope with health care reform we can flush the money obsessed doctors out of the system and replace them with people more interested in healing.

While medicine may not be like the clergy, studying long for no pay, it should not be as money obsessed as it is. It should be a calling to heal.

Doctors I have met in a non-patient environment (save some public service or teaching doctors), were more money focused than real estate agents, Wall Street types and mortgage brokers.

 

You may get your wish.

Under the Obama plan, everyone (except government, of course) will be equal. Janitor, burger flipper, Wal-Mart greeter, physician.... will all have the same economic status.

Doctors will work for the same minimum wage as everyone else, so their only motivation to become a doctor will be their "calling to heal".

Then again, those aspiring to medicine might just say "FUCK IT... WHY BOTHER?" Then nobody will have medical care because nobody will bother to become a doctor.

 

i just threw up a little in my mouth reading this- i don't care what motivates you i want my life in the best and most competent hands it can be- it just so happens success can motivate the conservative competent people who just want a safe track to get ahead in the game of life- that's who i want cutting me open. not someone who will feel bad if they cut the wrong thing-

 

This has not been the case in EVERY other developed country, so why would it happen here? Medicine should be a calling to heal, not a calling to lucre.

The doctors who serve in the military are very competent and motivated and they don't do it just for the money.

 

it is very convenient to ignore 95% or 99% of the industry. your statement is nothing but statistical nonsense.
how many doctors are there in the top 5 percent?
how many traders are there in the top 5
per cent? the larger the definition of traders the more likely the top 5% make less then the top 5% of doctors.

 

I'd read that in the former Soviet Union before the collapse, doctors earned about the equivalent of $20,000 per year.

It's a matter of degree. The more State-centric we become, the less there will be for everyone.

Someday folks will wake up and realize just how expensive this "free lunch" is that they've been promised and voted for.

 

Here is a Doctor's perspective.

I work very hard and I enjoy what I do. It is very demoralizing hearing people complain about how doctors make too much money, and they need to be taxed more. I work about 60-80 hours a week, and the job is difficult and challenging. I truly care about the outcome of the patients I treat.

Medicare payment actually are revenue negative for my practice. Meaning I actually pay money to the government to do Medicare. I do them anyway. In addition, when some scumbag gets shot in the middle of the night, and has no insurance, I also get called to go help save his life. He might have hepititis or HIV though, and if I get cut or spalshed with blood, I could contract a deadly virus. Btw, I will not see any money for that service.

I still make good money because I charge other people, and get paid well.

So to sum it up.

1) I work many hours missing out on great family life at home.
2) I sacrificed my 20's just to get the the point that I can start my carear.
3) I hear how Doctors need to get taxed more from obama and how the government want to push a universal coverage with a payment schedule that is net revenue negative (it is so low).
4) Potential high risk working environment with dangerous viruses that can kill you if exposed.

Eventually, "Atlas will Shrug" for many doctors and they will gone from the profession. Hopefully it will not happen, but I fear that the government and the people with their hand out will keep asking for more and more, until maybe I wont leave my wife and family in the middle of the night to go and take care of the no-pay gun shot wound. I might just not be available or have moved on to other things.

Afterall, the joy of work and helping people can only sustain the walls from crashing in for so long. Eventually, that altruistic action of giving care for free, might be gone. I might prefer working 40 hours a week and making a whole lot less money.

Regards,

 

Totally agree.

I dont get the people who are complaining about Doctors. There are a lot worse things going on in our economy than to be complaining about Doctors....IT MAKES NO SENSE.

As an example, ANYONE who has had a child or will have a child wants the BEST OBGYN possible to handle the delivery process. Why wouldn't you? You are a dumb ******* if you wouldn't want to put your kids in the hands of the best doctors.

Sure....some of the best doctors get paid more. So what? This is a Capitalist Country isnt it...where the best doctors should get paid the most.

Bottom line.....Being a Doctor is an honorable profession that should be paid accordingly in a Capitalistic Society. Much better and rewarding than being a parasitic trader.

 

My godson in Paris (more like a younger cousin really) is becoming a doctor there, and I've watched my French grandmother deal with many health care issues as she's currently 103 years old...

Plainly speaking, the French system is far better than ours. Doctors make good money but not $300,000 a year, and to be honest I don't see why they *should* make anything like that. In the US insurance eats so much of a doctor's salary away, while in France there isn't that problem. The US insurance thing is a tremendous waste as I see it. For doctors to make fewer mistakes they should have more time with patients -- duh... These days auto mechanics seem to take more care with diagnostics than medical doctors who are always rushed!

In France the state will pay for you to go to medical school. In the States people are priced out (even from undergrad), so talent is wasted. We need far more doctors to bring prices down. To achieve this we should pay for their educations. In the US you see some rushed overworked doctor who spends two quick minutes with you and charges thousands of dollars. It's absolutely absurd.

Doctors in France have always seemed quite happy from what I can tell, though of course this is anecdotal. I've sensed they feel they are living a good life with a sense of purpose and respect. They will be upper middle class, but probably not driving Porsches. But who really needs a Porsche? Anyway if they'd like they are free to build a larger business of course.

Here's a quote from a blog:

"I’ve had a unique opportunity to see both systems up close and personal: I had breast cancer in California nine years ago and a recurrence in Paris this year. I received excellent care in both places, though looking back now my California oncologist’s office was a bit of a meat market — always packed with patients, from the seemingly not-so-sick to some a step from the grave — a time-consuming disadvantage of living in a much larger country with a lower doctor-to-patient ratio.

My French doctors and nurses have been sensitive, skillful, caring — and not so harried.

But the biggest difference has been money…"


Here's an article on how the French system works. It's worth a look. Their system still has some problems but it truly is better and at half the price of ours.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ed...s/2007/08/11/frances_model_healthcare_system/

And it's a really nice feeling to know that all of the people around you will have access to good health care, as opposed to here where even many middle class people can only go to see care at the last minute once a preventable issue has become serious.